


As my two eyes make one in sight

by coloredink



Series: Hogwarts AU [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 01:03:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after Hogwarts, Sherlock needs a hobby.  John is determined to help him find one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As my two eyes make one in sight

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: THIS IS NOT GOOD. You can just...go ahead and not read this one. This is seriously, like, my C- game, but graduate school is really taking it out of me and also, lo, the trope_bingo deadline fast approaches. sob I need to write an entire fic tomorrow

"Sherlock." John looked around the flat wearily. "Have you even been outside today?"

Sherlock lay on his back on the couch, still in the same blue dressing gown he'd had on that morning when John had gone to work. "No need."

"You need the vitamin D, at least."

Sherlock sat up. "What's vitamin D?"

John opened his mouth. He closed it. "Seriously? Wizards don't know what vitamin D is?"

"Why should we? Is it something important?" Sherlock's eyebrows drew together. "You're always wittering on about vitamins and minerals, I can't tell which one of them is important--why do I have go to outside for vitamin D? What does it do?"

"I don't know! It keeps you from getting diseases!" John threw up his hands. "Look, I can't have this argument on an empty stomach. I'm getting changed and we're having supper and then we're talking." He marched into the bathroom. Shortly after, he screamed. "Why is there a _brain_ in the bathtub?! And--oh God-- _is it moving?_ "

\-----

It'd been five years since he'd graduated from Hogwarts, and John was certain he had a grey hair for each of those days. The first year had been, comparatively, peaceful, as Sherlock had been finishing his last year of studies whilst John focused on his Auror training at the Ministry of Magic. Then Sherlock had graduated and come to live with John, and...

Well, there were advantages to living with Sherlock. He was absolutely loaded, for one, and didn't seem to feel any shame or compunction about flinging his family's Galleons around. It was probable that John didn't need to work at all, but John liked feeling useful, and besides, he hadn't spent all those years at Hogwarts just to become a laybout afterwards. And Auror work was important. Sherlock had whinged at him a little at first, for being gone all day, but had soon found other ways to occupy himself: devising new spells (often explosive), tinkering with increasing amounts of Muggle chemistry (also often explosive, or malodourous), and, after John purchased him a computer, exploring the Internet (not explosive yet).

But even with the entirety of Wikipedia to read and retain, Sherlock still became _bored_. It was hard on John's nerves, coming home day after day and never quite certain if he'd find all the furniture on the ceiling or a Boggart in the pantry or just Sherlock, prostrate on the couch, still in the same position in which John had left him. The latter was infinitely preferable to pixies in the bathroom in terms of property damage, but it wrung John's heart. He didn't like seeing Sherlock listless and grey and hollowed out.

Sherlock was _brilliant_ , was the issue; he used up problems and threw them away at the speed of a bumblebee's wings, and then his mind tore itself to pieces looking for another puzzle. A week after John purchased him a laptop, Sherlock had already programmed himself a brute force password cracker; John would not be surprised if Sherlock wasn't infiltrating government secrets by now (and the less he knew about that, the better). Sherlock needed something to keep him out of trouble: but what?

\-----

"Not this again," Sherlock groaned.

"You'd _love it_ ," John insisted. "It's all the same stuff you're doing here at home, moving brains--they've got an entire _room_ full of those brains, Sherlock. And they're studying death, and time, and don't tell me you're not interested in that! And they have resources you'd never be able--"

"And I'd be working for the _Ministry_. Bunch of fat, complacent bureaucrats, addled in the head; they wouldn't know good research if it slapped them with a wet sock." Sherlock sniffed and pushed away his half-eaten plate of risotto. "And I don't want to be in the same building as Mycroft. The same _kilometre._ "

John sighed and stirred his risotto around. He thought. "Well, you need a job. And if you don't want one with the Ministry--"

"Boring. They're all boring." Sherlock got out of his seat and went to wander around the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards seemingly at random. "If it's not working for the Ministry, it's catering to the wizarding community. Serving butterbeers to witches, selling dried beetles to potionmakers, making wands for morons." Sherlock slammed one of the cupboards shut with enough force that John winced. He looked up to see Sherlock scowling at the grain of the wood as if it'd personally offended him by refusing to see the fact of the matter. "How long do you think I'd last?"

"Not very long," John admitted. "Well, what about--Care of Magical Creatures? You could travel the world, you could--"

"And leave London?" Sherlock looked appalled at the very notion. John did have to admit that Sherlock would probably go barking mad left alone in the woods for any length of time, even if it was in the company of centaurs.

"Besides," Sherlock went on, "it would involve leaving _you_."

"Oh. Well." John looked down at his risotto, unable to stop the smile that curled up the ends of his mouth. "Can't have that."

"There's only one thing to do," Sherlock declared, coming back to his chair at last. He turned it round so that he could put his elbows up on the back. "I'll have to get a Muggle job."

John stared. "What?"

"All the wizard jobs are idiotic," Sherlock said. "But Muggles have to use their brains, because they haven't any magic to do things for them. So I should be able to do a Muggle job."

John did not stop staring. "I don't think you--"

"What about physicist?" said Sherlock. "Can I do that?"

"Er," said John.

\-----

An hour later, Sherlock groaned and mashed the heels of his hands against his face. "Stop. Making. Suggestions."

"Cab driver?" John suggested. "You know London quite well."

"And have to deal with idiots who don't know their way all day? Ugh."

"All right, what about..." John wracked his brains. "Bartender?"

"Ugh."

"Web designer?"

" _Please_."

"Baggage handler?"

Sherlock favoured that one with only a withering look. "I can't believe I have to attend some banal Muggle school to qualify for anything _interesting_."

The issue wasn't getting Sherlock back into university, or at least, not _just_ that. It was that Sherlock had no record of a Muggle education: no grades from secondary school, or even primary school, since most children from wizarding families were homeschooled until they were eligible for one of the wizarding schools. As far as the British education system was concerned, Sherlock Holmes had never existed. John was sure that his contacts in the Ministry of Magic could probably fix that, but then there was the matter of Sherlock not doing very well in structured environments where he was expected to answer to authority. It was a miracle he hadn't flunked out of Hogwarts and probably owed solely to the fact that he was a genius who could make teacups dance on the head of a pin with a snap of his fingers. He would be brilliant at any Muggle university too, John was sure, but only if he could keep from getting expelled.

"There are lots of interesting careers that don't require schooling, I just can't think of any of them right now." John knuckled his eyes. "Let's sleep on it, and we'll talk more about it tomorrow, all right?"

\-----

The next morning, John overslept and so they weren't able to talk about it at breakfast, which was just as well since Sherlock seemed reluctant to leave the coccoon of sheets. John thought about it all morning at work, went to Waterstones on his lunch break, and then thought about it all afternoon. He went back to Waterstones before getting on the Tube to go home. (John still preferred the Tube to the Floo Network.) 

On his way up the escalator, he heard a dreadful yowling cacophony from the street level and had a sinking feeling he knew what it was.

He came out of Baker Street Tube and all but smacked into Sherlock, who was standing on the pavement with his violin tucked under his chin, glaring at passersby and scraping out the most awful, piercing noises. Said passersby gave him a wide berth and looked right through him or above him in true British fashion. Sherlock had his violin case open at his feet, which to John's surprise had a not inconsiderable amount of money in it.

"Sherlock!" John grabbed Sherlock by the elbow. "What on earth?!"

"You said I needed a job," said Sherlock.

"I did, but," Upon closer inspection, Sherlock's violin case had quite a bit of money in it. There were a lot of five pound notes in there, and most of the change looked to be one and two pound coins. "Did these people pay you to _stop playing?_ "

"One did." Sherlock lowered his violin; John saw several faces relax in relief. "At least, that's what he said."

"You'd do better to play some proper music," said John. "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

"Do you really?" Sherlock looked intrigued. "I doubt that'd be true in the case of _Drosophila_ , as they're drawn to the--"

"It's a Muggle saying." John let go of Sherlock's arm. "It _means_ that you get better results if you're sweeter about it."

"I did get rather more money at first." Sherlock toed the violin case, which jingled. "It was interesting, to see which would achieve the best results; the evidence isn't empirical, but Mozart appeared to perform the best."

John sighed. "And then you got bored."

"It's not as if what I'm playing isn't music," Sherlock huffed. "Have you even _heard_ of the Venetian Snares?"

"Never mind," said John. "Let's go home. I brought you something."

"Yes, I saw the bag." Sherlock sounded happy. He loved presents, and he loved surprises, even if for him they were hardly surprises. "You've brought me a book."

"Er--yes." John reached down and shut up Sherlock's violin case. It was quite heavy when he picked it up. 

It was only a few blocks to their flat. Sherlock opened the door and bounded up the stairs in front of John to settle his violin and bow on the armchair. John dropped the violin case on the floor and handed Sherlock the Waterstone's bag. It contained a slim volume that claimed to be _101 Magic Tricks_ and, in smaller type, _for the Intermediate Magician_. John fancied that beginner Sherlock was intermediate for everyone else, if not advanced already. "I was looking for jobs that someone might have without any education. And I saw this and, well, since you're a wizard already--"

Sherlock had taken the book and was flipping through it with his brow furrowed. "Muggles don't do magic," he said, slowly, "but they _do_ engage in illusion and sleight of hand tricks designed to make other Muggles think that they _do_ perform magic?"

John shrugged. That was as good a way to put it as any. "Yes."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "Intriguing."

\-----

"Pick a card."

John scanned the cards Sherlock had fanned out in front of him. Sherlock studiously stared up and to the left as John made his choice. John then returned the card to its place and Sherlock shuffled the deck.

"Was it this one?" Sherlock flourished the ten of hearts.

"It was!" John exclaimed, surprised that Sherlock had gotten it right. Why was he surprised, though? It was Sherlock, after all. He could probably learn how to drive a car in ten minutes, too.

For the next ten days, John could hardly move about the flat without bumping into magic boxes and tripping over silk hats. Once he came home to find the flat filled with doves (well, there were only two doves, but two doves can really fill a room). Sherlock insisted on demonstrating his newfound _illusions_ or _tricks_ to John every night (he refused to call it magic, since it wasn't), sometimes before dinner, and John indulged him gladly. He'd take sitting through parlour tricks over brains in the bathtub any day.

After Sherlock successfully lit one of John's jumpers on fire and put it out without any harm done, John said, "You know, you're probably ready to start performing for people."

"You think?" Sherlock said in that careless manner that meant it wasn't really a question. He hung John's jumper on the hook in the hall and preened.

"I don't know how one advertises this sort of thing," John admitted. "Gumtree? Or we could make a website, is probably the easiest, or a blog."

"Viral advertising," Sherlock declared, striking a dramatic pose atop the coffee table. "I'll put on a show in Regent's Park."

"You know, that's not a bad idea," John mused. "And I'll film it and put it on YouTube. Oh, and you know, one of Harry's Muggle coworkers is having a birthday party for her kid; perhaps we'll see if she wants to hire a magician. We'll charge a very reasonable fee."

The deadly silence from Sherlock was palpable.

"Every bit of exposure helps," John tried.

" _No_ ," Sherlock hissed. "I will not waste my _skills_ on sugar-addled brats."

"Well--"

"Don't you even start with _working my way to the top_." Sherlock leapt down from the coffee table with a loud _thump_ and proceeded to stalk around John in circles. "I am _brilliant_ and people will notice. There will be no need for me to pull rabbits out of hats for unappreciative imbeciles sated on sugar and fat."

"All right," said John. "All right, all right. No birthday parties."

Sherlock had stopped, staring down the stairwell to the front door as if he could see the world beyond, which perhaps he could. "No, you're right," he said, and John did a double take. Was Sherlock really going to agree to the prudent course of action? But then the next words out of Sherlock's mouth were, "True genius is hardly recognised in this field. Look at Criss Angel, after all."

And Sherlock snapped his fingers, and every "illusion"-related prop in the flat spontaneously combusted.

\-----

After that, Sherlock fell into another funk, going from bedroom to couch to, occasionally, the floor, and then back to the bedroom to repeat the cycle all over again. It was quiet, at least--no flobberworms in the oven and no banshee in the basement--but it was hard to watch.

One night, John all but crawled up the stairs on his hands and feet to yet another darkened flat. He could just make out Sherlock sprawled on the couch, listless and weary. John dropped his bag on the floor, cracked his neck, and dragged his feet into the kitchen to make a late supper.

"You're late," said Sherlock, from the couch.

John had just gotten back from a dungeon raid. And there'd been no other word for it: it was dark, there were shackles, it was a dungeon. There'd been Muggles down there, including Muggle children. "Long day."

There was a rustle behind him as Sherlock got up from the couch. "Are you making supper?"

"Yes," said John as he surveyed the contents of the refrigerator. "Are you hungry?" That was a good sign; Sherlock hadn't been hungry for days.

"Yes," said Sherlock. He came up behind John and put his chin on John's shoulder. He had to stoop quite a bit. "I want risotto."

"Risotto takes too long. I'm making pasta." John fetched out the parmesan and shut the door, jostling Sherlock's chin off of his shoulder. He opened a cupboard and got down the dried spaghetti and a jar of sauce.

"It doesn't take a long time if you use magic," Sherlock yawned, leaning against the counter.

John didn't like using magic to cook. Honestly, it was partly because he wasn't confident of his abilities: levitation had not been one of his specialties, which was a strong component of cooking magic. But also he liked the physicality of cooking, and knowing that this was the one mundane, reliable aspect of his life after a long day of dodging curses and confiscating blood-stained books. "If you want risotto so badly, make it yourself. And you can use magic."

"But I like you to cook for me," Sherlock muttered.

"Then you'll have to put up with what I cook." John filled a pot with water and set it on the hob to boil. Sherlock tapped the rim of the pot with his wand and the water began to roil and steam. "Ta." John dropped in a handful of dried spaghetti.

Sherlock set the knife to chopping an onion whilst John selected dried herbs to liven up the jarred sauce. By the time the onions were sautéed and the sauce heated through, the spaghetti was done cooking and drained in the sink. It had all taken less than fifteen minutes. It was all John could do to eat his dinner at the table instead of gobbling it down over the sink.

"You did most of that yourself," John said, wiping sauce off his face. "So much for you liking it when I cook for you."

Sherlock grunted as he twirled his spaghetti around his fork.

"Maybe you should try cooking without magic sometime," John suggested.

"I'm not a housewife," Sherlock muttered. The spaghetti fell off his fork. He twirled it again.

John put down his fork. "I didn't say you were."

"Not going to dust and hoover and make sure supper's on the table for you." Sherlock stabbed at his noodles with short, sharp jerks, his fork clinking off the bottom of his plate.

John sighed. "I just thought it'd keep you busy. Cooking's chemistry, after all. The Muggle cookbooks all say so."

Sherlock grunted and shoved a forkful of pasta in his mouth. He chewed without meeting John's eyes. John sighed and took a bite of his own food, though for some reason his appetite had disappeared.

\-----

But the next several weeks, John _did_ come back to food on the table, albeit not in a way he preferred--although he _could_ have predicted it, if he'd given it some thought. After all, Sherlock fancied himself a scientist.

The first few days, it was nothing but eggs. Fried eggs, poached eggs, eggs benedict, omelettes. They were all done to perfection and it was never the same way twice, so John could hardly complain of being bored--but he did rather hope he wouldn't be eating breakfast for the rest of his life.

He needn't have worried, because just as suddenly it was beef. Beef stroganoff, roast beef, chipped beef and toast, beef stew, broccoli and beef stir-fry, beef tongue, porterhouse steaks. John wondered if he should stop by the gym on the way home, or if he needed to persuade Sherlock to get his choleresterol tested. But the beef went the way of the eggs, and next on the agenda was beans.

Sherlock left amazing messes in the kitchen, and John would easily spend an hour scrubbing pots and pans and scraping off the stovetop after dinner. He could have cleaned it using magic, but since Sherlock wasn't using magic--supposedly--to cook, John supposed it was only fair that he didn't use magic to clean. And the food _was_ good, and John liked coming home to a bright, cheery flat that smelled of good food.

But after only a few days of baked beans, bean salad, and bean soup, John came home to a dark flat. He found Sherlock curled up on the couch, facing the back. Sherlock didn't move as John approached, and didn't so much as twitch when John laid a hand on his shoulder.

"I'll call for some takeaway, shall I?" John murmured. Sherlock did not respond.

\-----

John opened the door to Sherlock, upright and mobile, sitting on the couch with his laptop on his lap. No noxious smells; no suspicious rustling from behind the bookshelf. John hung up his coat and went to sprawl out on the couch next to Sherlock. He mashed his face into Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock made a noise of faint annoyance, and John caught a glimpse of what Sherlock had been doing. "Why are you reading about Jeffrey Dahmer on Wikipedia?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I just kept clicking on related articles. It's very interesting, really. Muggles can be very creative."

John groaned and turned his face aside again. "Christ, not you too. Today at work we got called in by one of our Muggle police contacts to investigate a murder he thought was magical in nature, but turned out not a trace of magic on it. And now he's fair stumped; if it's not magic, he doesn't know how it was done."

Sherlock straightened; John could almost feel him vibrating with interest. "Tell me."

"Well, all right." John didn't see how it could hurt. He rearranged himself so that he was more comfortable, Sherlock's arm around his shoulders and John's head pillowed on Sherlock's chest. "Man called the police today; he found a dead body lying in a stream by the roadside."

"So this wasn't in the city."

"No, it was a little ways out. This man, he'd been having a lot of car trouble, and his car was broken down by the side of the road. He was trying to get it started, and he saw this man standing in the stream, looking at the sky or birds or something like that. When he got out of the car, he saw that the man was now lying _in_ the stream. He stopped and called to the man to ask if he was all right, and when the man didn't respond, he went closer. That was when he saw the man was dead. He rang the police, and they rang me because they couldn't see how this man had died, they couldn't find a murder weapon or anything."

Sherlock shifted. "Cause of death?"

John smiled. "Single blow to the back of the head. Not magic; I would have found it."

Sherlock fell silent, fingers stroking up and down John's arm. It made him shiver. "Did the car make a sound, when he was trying to start it?"

"Hmmm." John rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Yes, he said it backfired. Sounded like a gunshot. At first he thought maybe the man had been shot, but there wasn't a bullet wound. Just the head injury."

"Tell me about the man," Sherlock said. "The dead man. What did he look like?"

John closed his eyes. "Well, he was taller than me, but not quite so tall as you, I think. He was fit. Um. Brown hair, blue eyes."

"What was he wearing?"

"Red jacket. Jeans, jumper. Boots. A wool cap."

"Jewelry? Anything in his pockets?"

"Christ, I wasn't looking for any of that," John grumbled. "Anyhow, the police had already gone through his pockets. Just the usual: wallet, identification, some coins."

"What was in the wallet?"

"The usual. Bills, receipts, things like that. He'd just got back from Australia; he still had a ticket stub for a show at the Sydney Opera House in his wallet."

Sherlock made a frustrated noise and raised both hands to scrub at his hair, dislodging John in the process. "Did no one think to search the stream?"

John blinked. "Of course they--"

"Not for a _gun_ ," Sherlock groaned as if John had just punched him in the stomach. "For a _boomerang_. Fit man, athletic, just back from Australia, staring at the sky? He'd brought back a boomerang and was out playing with it, but when the car backfired he turned to look, but when he turned--"

"The boomerang hit him in the head, and he died." John stared. A slow grin spread across his face. Sherlock just grimaced. "That's brilliant. I think you've solved it. Hang on, I'll--" He fumbled his mobile out of his trouser pocket and phoned Lestrade.

\-----

Over the course of the next few weeks, John brought back folder after folder of cold cases. Not procedure, perhaps, but it wasn't as if New Scotland Yard had an official procedure with Aurors. Sherlock solved most of them without anything more than the notes and photographs in the file, and the rest were solved after questioning the witnesses again, often about the oddest things: what colour was the ladder? What sort of flooring did the room have? Did the dog make any noise in the night-time?

"It's not as if any of this is really that _novel_ ," Sherlock complained as he lay on his back on the couch, holding a folder above his head. "I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's just brainwork. Muggles have got brains."

But John, sitting in his armchair, thought Sherlock seemed pleased. Sherlock ate; he played his violin; he leafed through cold cases; he read medical encyclopaedias and forensics textbooks with new energy. And Lestrade was pleased, too: his cases were being closed.

"You could do this, you know." John sipped his tea. "Regularly."

Sherlock splayed the folder against his chest and raised his eyebrows at John. "Do what?"

"Help the police," said John. "The magical cases, you know, they'll call in the Aurors, and we'll solve those right away because it'll be magic. But there are the tricky ones that aren't magical, and you can solve those."

Sherlock made a derisive noise. "I don't want to be a _policeman_."

"You won't," said John. Sherlock would hate that, anyway. "You could be...a consultant. A detective consultant. A consulting detective."

"Hmm." Sherlock ran his tongue around his teeth and stared up at the ceilng. "A consulting detective. I suppose I could."

\---end---

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